So, What's New?

It was a blast from the past. Scrolling through Facebook this morning, I came across a post that someone had shared that included a video of children who had been given a Walkman, and then asked what it was and how it worked. Remember the Walkman, the best invention to hit the streets in the 80’s? As the kids turned it over and over in their hands, studying the buttons and trying to figure out how it worked, some of them made the remark that “they felt just like Indiana Jones” and that “this invention makes you work to hear the music!”

Compared to today’s iPods, iPads and Smartphones, the Walkman probably did seem like a dinosaur to the kids that were interviewed. Out with the old and in with the new; that’s progress! Which brings me to the subject of this article, and that’s to introduce some great, new, adult fiction that can be found on the shelves of your local branch of JCPL. Read on!

The year is 1936; Evalina Toussaint has been orphaned and is subsequently admitted to a mental hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. There, she befriends Zelda Fitzgerald, the hospital’s most notable patient. This novel, part fiction, part fact, begins with Evalina’s hospitalization, chronicling the events that led to the hospital’s tragic fire of 1948; a fire that left nine women dead. “Guests on Earth” by Lee Smith brings the reader back to a time and place where theory and medicine intertwine with love, compassion and friendship.

Walt Longmire is Wyoming’s Sheriff, a sheriff who marches on, unafraid of his most dangerous foes. In “A Serpent’s Tooth” by Craig Johnson, Longmire and his deputy, Victoria Moretti, along with his longtime friend, Henry Standing Bear, begin an adventure into the high plains, in hopes of reuniting a lost boy with his mother. Very few clues, however, present themselves, and as they travel ever deeper into the plains, they discover an interstate polygamy group harboring hatred and a vicious vendetta in this ninth installment in the Walt Longmire series.

In 1966, Harold and Lucille Hargrave lost their only son, Jacob. He drowned on his eighth birthday. Years later, after settling into life without their son, Harold and Lucille receive the shock of their lives when Jacob mysteriously shows up on their doorstep, in the flesh, and still eight years old. All over the world, the same thing is happening for other folks; their loved ones are returning from the grave. Is it a miracle, or is there some other force at work, bringing them back to life? “The Returned” by Jason Mott explores a world where loved ones are only lost for a time, returning to their families and loved ones, well and whole.

When a series of bizarre homicides rocks Los Angeles, FBI Agent Alexis Martin zeroes in on the city’s vampires. She knows that vampires exist and that they are killers, plain and simple, and the reason that she knows this for certain is that they killed her sister. Alexis’ personal life involves Serge, a centuries-old man harboring many secrets; secrets that may end not only his relationship with Alexis, but may destroy him as well in “When Darkness Hungers,” book number 5 in The Shadow Keepers by J.K. Beck.

Old Southern money and old Southern secrets combine to create a masterpiece in “Lookaway, Lookaway” by Wilton Barnhardt. In this novel, scandal and mishap follow the Johnston family, as each heir to the Johnston name and fortune wanders through life, forging ahead in a modern world where the family legacy is threatened at every turn, leaving the matriarch of the family trying to tie up the ever-loosening ends.

What’s out: Boom-boxes, the Walkman, cassette tapes, 8 track tapes, video tapes, rotary telephones, LP records, all replaced by technological advances. What’s ALWAYS in: These and many more new fiction titles from our local branch of the Jasper County Public Library, where old meets new to combine for a great source of entertainment, no matter what year it is!